This paper focuses on the ideational dimension of regional security governance. The rise of China has posed a significant challenge to the primacy of US power in Asia. Using mechanisms of regionalism to reduce conflicts has been promoted in recent years. In 2008 Kevin Rudd proposed the idea of an Asia-Pacific Community and in 2011 Henry Kissinger proposed the development of a Pacific Community to manage and contain potential conflict between the US and China. This paper examines three contestations—why and how regionalism works with the US-led alliance system to manage regional conflicts, why and how regionalism complements China’s national approach in reducing and managing conflicts, and competing views of security regional governance principle focusing the issue of centrality of ASEAN. It addresses the question of whether and how Asian regionalism has modified the logic of alliance, and can manage the conflict between China and the US, and examine the conditions for the successful development of regional security governance.